How To Make an International Telephone Call

The globe is increasingly becoming a small place, and making international phone calls is increasingly becoming frequent in order to facilitate business transactions. As more and more corporations are gaining global presence, international phone calls are also growing. There are plenty of ways for you to make the phone call. Here’s how.

International prefix. One of the basic ways is to use the home phone. You will first need to add the international prefix. You can find this on the web or on the resources page of phone books. Keep in mind that if you do not have the international prefix, you will not be connected to the international region that you need to call.

Country code. Next, you will need to specify the country code. The country code represents a specific country, and is a number with up to three digits. Again, you will need the correct country code to be connected. These are also available on phone books or in online lists.

City code. Apart from the country code, you will also need to dial in the city code, followed by the local number.

VOIP. Apart from the telephone, however, you can also use VOIP services, or voice over internet protocol services. This is a technology that makes use of the internet to create phone calls. Basically, the information is condensed, so that each phone call will use lower bandwidth, which will allow the service providers to manage and accommodate more phone calls, which in turn means a lower rate for the end users. These are provided as subscription plans in most areas, and are useful if you will make international phone calls regularly.

Using a card. If you cannot afford to stick to a VOIP service provider, however, you can also minimize your international telephone call expenses by getting a prepaid international call card. This will automatically cut off the call when you have reached the limit that you have paid for, which prevents massive phone bills. You can get these from a number of convenience stores as well as from the internet. If you are using cards, however, it is best to calculate the rates for the phone calls beforehand, so that you will be able to estimate how long the phone conversation will last. Keep in mind that making calls to cellular or mobile phones is usually more expensive than calls on landline telephones.

Internet calls. Finally, you can also make use of internet calls if you are contacting people with access to computers and the internet. Internet calls make use of VOIP technology as well, but are free if you use software such as Skype. These can be downloaded from the web, and will allow you to make voice calls from one computer to another, as long as a microphone and speaker is attached to both computers. You can even make video calls if there are web cameras attached to the computers.

There are plenty of ways to connect with your friends, family, and business partners. Through these steps, making international phone calls can be done – whatever the budget.